The Backpackers of 2023!

Sunday was spent catching up with the Australian backpackers of 2023! Toby and Hannah (Lou and Lloyd's!) entertained themselves while all the adults spent much of the day hunting the house, garden and bins looking for a set of keys! I really hate losing things!!!! Hannah tried on her Australian hat for size while Toby struggled to keep still as usual while tucking into a variety of solids for the first time.

Poppy (Mel and Gary's!) spent much of her time rolling golf balls under the sofa for me to fetch so that she could jump on my back!!! , encouraged by Beth and Mel who also thought it was funny to get me to redo one of her bunches!

Beth and I feel really sad that we won't be around to see them grow up, it seems like the one thing we'll really miss as they seem to change from one week to the next at the moment, unlike adults that seem to stay very much the same from one year to the next! Uncle Paul and Auntie Beth promise to stay in touch and backpackers will always be most welcome! ;0)

Argyle 3 Norwich 1

Saturday marked a rare visit back to Home Park (The Home of Football!) for my penultimate game. It was good to catch up with Dad and the lads and sit back and enjoy the result, the game and the sunshine. Norwich were the visitors on this occasion and after a fairly even first half Argyle went on to dominate scoring two more to add to the first goal in the first half. They managed to grab a late consolation! First time I have been able to get there for quite a while, but it didn't feel like much had changed. Just Leeds Utd to go now..... the week before we fly!

Tickets Arrive....

The tickets for the flights and the holiday enroute arrived with about nine weeks to go. The new travel company (Travelbag) got everything sorted in record quick time! We've got one of these water side bungalows for four nights on the way. The island is Kangkawi and is part of Malaysia.

Beth's Birthday

We took some time out to be with friends to celebrate Beth's Birthday during our last weekend in Exeter before the short term move up North. It was great to catch up and we promised to get back to Exeter some weekends to visit before the move down under.

Pickfords Packing...

Long time no blogging... that's because we've probably had the most exhausting two weeks of our lives! Having spent all week in Oxford I returned home on the Thursday night to start packing, lifting, carrying and delivering almost everything we own or owned! Beth's work in selling all the furniture came to fruition as I spent much of the weekend delivering beds, television units, sideboards, washing machines, fridge freezers, more beds and kitchen utensils! Jean and Jon came down to visit and were very helpful in being helping hands and also to reassure that everything would be out by Sunday... even if I'm not sure that they believed it themselves! In fact the only things that we had left come Sunday night were a set of two IKEA table lamps... (Still available for £5 the pair! ;0) )

In amongst all the amateur removals ,and the use of skateboards to transport a mattress 500 yards down the road, the professionals came to pack everything else, leaving us with nothing more than a suitcase each! Everything was well packaged including Beth's birthday presents... one of which was meant to be packed one which was not! After a night off to celebrate Beth's Birthday (see above!) we got up later than we should have and started to pack the other bits and bobs we need until December. That took much longer than expected and so we turned up three and a half hours late for a roast dinner at Lou and Lloyds before driving in convoy (Stan and the Yaris!) to Bristol arriving at 10:30pm.... To top that off Beth and I were up at 6:30am the next day ready for the train back to Oxford!

Watts Fest

Friday night after a late afternoon dash from Oxford we travelled thirty minutes outside Exeter to the middle of knowhere. Jon's band Sancho Panzer ;0) were playing at an invite only free festival. There were some interesting characters milling about the tents most wearing their trousers in that slightly strange half way between your knee and waist fashion. Must be getting old!... pull um up!!!!

Flights Booked...

Following the bombshell from Oz Travel it was straight on the phone to a very disappointed Beth to find somewhere else to visit on the way down under. After several phone calls to Beth, visits to websites and calls to Travelbag (highly recommended!) we managed to book flights for the same day, arriving in Sydney on the same day but stopping over in Malaysia. We found a lovely atoll island called Langkawi where we can have our little shore side bungalow on stilts. We saved some money (flights £100 cheaper each!) and so spent a little more on the accommodation, Beth can still snorkel with the ickle fishies, we got the double baggage allowance that we were refused with Emirates and more importantly I'm told the beer is half the price it is in the Maldives. Happy days....

Flights Cancelled...

The mystery of the man with foreign accent who keeps trying to call me while I'm in Oxford was solved today after Beth gave him my mobile number. He was from Oz Travel (not recommended!!!) and called to say that our stop over in the Maldives had been cancelled. We were offered another visit to Dubai (which is lovely!) but we feel that the world is too big a place to go somewhere twice!... Therefore all flights are cancelled!